


(all my life) i've never known where you've been

by ipreferfiction



Series: we live or die to take the throne [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Friends, Eternal Empire's conquest of the Republic, Gen, Planet Tython (Star Wars), Valkorion is the Worst, Valkorion raises the Jedi Knight, and ruins literally everything, one of them, the knight's enduring Vitiate Trauma, thinking the other was dead (platonic version), with a guest appearance by:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29412696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipreferfiction/pseuds/ipreferfiction
Summary: Oh, Force, it hits her then, and her knees almost give out just as the woman opens her mouth once more.“My name is Lia Vhoss,” she says, teal skin shining in the light of the Temple she hasn’t set foot in since she was eleven years old, “and I am here to negotiate a treaty on behalf of Thexan Tirall, Eternal Emperor of Zakuul.”And J’lima’s balance is undone.[or: the Republic falls to the Eternal Empire.]
Relationships: Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython & Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython
Series: we live or die to take the throne [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153424
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	(all my life) i've never known where you've been

**Author's Note:**

> this was extremely fun; i love giving my knight Trauma, it's a wonderful hobby of mine. it takes place about a year after the Eternal Empire makes their initial assault on the galaxy, so no Outlander or Alliance yet.
> 
> title from "always gold" by radical face.

J’lima’s burning copper lightsaber arcs through the air and she leaps to meet it, already slicing it down as she slams into the next wave of battle droids. Ataru’s acrobatics come as easily as breathing to her after all this time (after the year she spent doing nothing but beating herself into a pulp in the training hold of her ship, chasing away Vitiate’s ghost inside her head with Ataru and Juyo and Djem So, with aggression the Council condemned and the wrath in her veins encouraged), and the droids may be good, but she is the Battlemaster of the Jedi Order for a reason. They fall in piles around her, to her mainhand blade or the golden shoto she wields offhand, nothing more than heaps of metal scrap and twisting edges.

On any other day, this would be a victory. Today, though, J’lima can’t even stop to breathe before the droids are coming again, an endless flow of blasters and cannons and sheer  _ numbers _ that overwhelm her. Her escort is dead, their bodies lying somewhere in this field or the last—and she is still only one Jedi. There will come a point when not even her connection to the Force or her skills with lightsabers will help her against these numbers.

The Eternal Empire has ripped through the Republic world by world, its white-robed conqueror at the head of an unstoppable army. Her lightsaber has carved them a path straight through to here, to Tython, the homeworld of the Jedi Order, and now there is nothing that will stop her. From here, they can assault even Coruscant, and nothing will stand in their path. The Republic will fall, just as the Empire did to the man in white with his mechanical arm, and the Jedi will fall with them.

If she were anyone else, J’lima would be shaking with exhaustion by now. Only the Force wrapped around her keeps her upright, keeps her hands from shaking as her sabers flash through Jar’Kai forms and Ataru stances, through darker movements she learned too late at night, arms trembling as a red lightsaber crashed against her own. Droids fall, and the Force is howling around her, and J’lima Akarr may have killed the Sith Emperor once but Vitiate doesn’t remember how to die and his greed is tearing the galaxy in two again and she  _ cannot _ let him win. Not after Ziost, after Dromund Kaas, after every planet he tried to consume for another taste of immortality. And what is this but an extension of his thirst? The twins, one who took the throne and one who conquered the Empire, this Nautolan woman who has carved a path to the beating heart of the Republic, what are they but his scions?

Everything Vitiate has ever done has been for the insatiable hunger that has driven him for a thousand years. Somehow, cynically, J’lima isn’t surprised he has managed to build and destroy a second empire. He never could have been satisfied with the Sith, not when he thought himself above it all, not when he named himself the Force given form.

J’lima killed him once, and a Sith killed him the second time, but even now he haunts the galaxy.

Force, she’s just  _ tired. _ They’ve been fighting for a year against this new empire, and J’lima has burned more Jedi than she cares to remember, has lit their pyres and whispered prayers to the Force and gone into battle the next day with it at her back and blood on her hands. Battlemaster of the Jedi Order, and for what? Just so she can watch them be extinguished by droids and a woman who slaughters them without a second thought?

Years ago, when she was newly-knighted and still wielding the first set of lightsabers she’d ever built, still wearing white armor and light brown robes, she would have been able to face down the whole of the Eternal Empire and do it without breaking, without even flinching, righteousness in her bones. But that Jedi died when Vitiate crept inside her head and made her into a weapon, and these days, J’lima doesn’t know how to live without a lightsaber in her hands and an opponent in front of her. She isn’t sure what that makes her, if she deserves a single title she’s been given, or if one day Satele Shan will just look through her and see down to all the darkest parts of her, will name her  _ fallen _ and condemn her to whatever fate she should have been left to when she made her closest ally a Sith.

Oh, it doesn’t matter, she’ll still fight to her dying breath, but—

Some days she just wants to disappear. Take her ship, take Scourge and Kira and Teesev and vanish into the Unknown Regions, live in asteroid belts and in the mass shadow of nebulae, secure in the knowledge that they’re the only living things around for thousands of parsecs. She wants to forget Vitiate’s name and scrape every piece of him from her body, even if she can’t do it for the galaxy. She wants to know how she earned her scars instead of learning it through fragmented memories and secondhand recollections. She wants a lot of things, most of them far out of her reach.

(She wants her master back, wants Orgus Din to smile at her and embrace her like he used to when she’d achieved some great success. He was like her father, and she watched him die and couldn’t stop it, and somehow even that isn’t the greatest loss she’s experienced, not next to what Vitiate made her do, but it  _ hurts. _ It’s been years, but even now she sometimes wakes up with tears on her cheeks and that holo stamped behind her eyes. His spirit saved her, and  _ there is no death, there is the Force, _ but that brought her less comfort than it should.

It never brought her much comfort after Lia disappeared, either. After fifteen years, J’lima can’t even picture her face anymore or hear her voice inside her head, but she remembers flashes of teal head-tentacles, and wide, dark eyes always gleaming with mischief. She remembers pride, and love, and the way only Lia could ever match her.

And she remembers the ship that disappeared, and how no trace of it was ever found.)

The droids keep falling around J’lima, and her lightsabers are little more than a blur—her feet are on the ground until they aren’t, until she is spinning through the air and throwing one or both of the sabers out, until she is  _ slamming _ into the ground in a wave of Force that tears the droids apart in a ripple of power. But the Force is empty around J’lima and even surrounded by so many empty husks she barely has time to steady herself before they are coming, again and again and  _ again, _ and—

She hasn’t fought without someone watching her back for longer than she wants to admit. It was Kira, until it wasn’t, and even if Grandmaster Satele disapproved, Scourge kept her safe enough to stagger back to her ship and refuse kolto after every battle. But both of them are still planetside on Ord Mantell; J’lima was recalled too quickly to retrieve her ship, let alone either of  _ them, _ and though she had a pair of Jedi serving as an escort in this battle, they’re both long dead, buried somewhere under a heavy layer of droids. J’lima fights alone, and if she dies today, it’ll be alone, too.

The tide of mechanical bodies eventually ebbs just a hair, and it’s enough for J’lima to force a gap through them and escape up the nearest embankment. The droids are all equipped with boosters, the jump won’t slow them down, but at least J’lima will have a moment to catch her breath. When she can’t hear them anymore except for a distant echo of rhythmic marching, she sags against a tree and lets her blades flicker out with a hiss, leaning her head back against the trunk. It’s the closest thing she’s had to a break for hours, and she lets the Force slacken around her with a groan. Without it to support her, all the aches of the battle have come to rest squarely on her shoulders; it’s all she can do to keep upright.

Not even a full minute has passed when the almost-silence of the forest is shattered once again, this time by a faintly beeping comm. She reaches for it, though her fingers slip on its surface—her hand is bloody, though she hadn’t noticed earlier, robes soaked through with red across her entire forearm. Despite the blood, she answers the comm before its fourth ring, exhaustedly gritting out a faint, “Akarr here.”

_ “Battlemaster,” _ greets Master Vreila Lanar, one of the High Council’s youngest members.  _ “What is your current status?” _ Despite her lack of eyes, the Miralukan diplomat has gotten very good at positioning her gaze to face whoever she’s speaking to; as she levels it at J’lima, she can’t help but wish that it wasn’t so  _ unsettling _ to have a Council member look at her now, even a blind one.

“I’m alive,” J’lima says through gritted teeth, and brushes dark strands of hair from her eyes. “Knights Tress and Kilda aren’t. The droids are almost on me again—is there a problem?” If she wasn’t so utterly wiped out, the question would sound sharper, but as it is, the Force alone is dulling the throbbing pain in her arm and the ache in her legs, and she can barely think past the raw edges of her consciousness. Force exhaustion is creeping up on her, and even if she’s only felt its effects a few times, she knows how badly it will flatten her.

Master Lanar pauses for a few moments, then murmurs something to someone just out of earshot. She gets a response, though J’lima can’t make out the details, and sighs heavily.

_ “You’re being pulled back to the Council chambers, Master Akarr,” _ she says firmly.  _ “We need you here. There’s word that the conqueror is on Tython. There is nothing more you can do in the field.” _

J’lima wants to argue on principle—she’s made them bleed, has taken out more of their droids on her own than a squad of Jedi normally could—but fatigue is pushing at her throat and if she faces those droids again, she won’t come out again.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she replies, and Master Lanar nods.

_ “We await your arrival. May the Force be with you, Battlemaster.” _

“And with you, Master,” J’lima says, and cuts the comm.

She allows herself another ten seconds to bleed her pain into the Force, then wraps it around her again and takes off running.

By the time the Jedi Temple rises from Tython’s fertile ground before her, J’lima has been drawing on the Force to stay upright for—probably too long. Though the Temple itself remains untouched by droids or the lightsaber-wielding warriors that accompany both the conquerors, a hush has fallen over it, and when J’lima steps through its doors, no padawans or knights greet her, and no masters or younglings stroll through the halls. She can feel them, clusters of bright Force signatures spread throughout the Temple complex, but every one of them is in hiding, and J’lima’s footsteps echo as though in a mausoleum as she climbs the steps to the second floor and the chambers of the Jedi High Council.

The doors swing open when she knocks. She knows all the faces gathered inside, nods a greeting to a few of them, but the mood is grim. There is little they can do but wait and pray they make it out alive.

At least J’lima regains the ability to stand without the Force’s failing aid. The moment she comes near Master Lanar, the Miralukan tells her to stand still, then passes a hand across her body and lifts some of the utter exhaustion from her muscles. Something she learned from an old friend, she explains; J’lima is just glad it worked as she takes up a place at the back of the room, arms crossed and lightsabers returned to her belt.

It doesn’t take long. Within five minutes, the first crash sounds from below, and before long, the heavy noise of boots against the stairs herald the arrival of a great number of bodies. J’lima doesn’t flinch when the Council doors slam open, but she closes her eyes for just a second.

It’s over. The conquest is complete.

And  _ she _ is the first figure through the doorway.

A Nautolan like the holos showed, white robes edged in gold and with a black and gold lightsaber clutched in one gloved hand, the woman is dripping derision into the Force when she takes her first step into the chambers. She spares the room one unimpressed glance with eyes of pure gold, then turns to face the Jedi and gives a sweeping bow.

“Good, the High Council is in session after all,” she says, voice tinged with an accent J’lima couldn’t name; despite that, her presence in the Force is  _ familiar. _ Too familiar for anyone from the Eternal Empire, even if she is the only nonhuman witnessed among their numbers. And—anyone with this much power would have been found, either by the Jedi or the Sith. J’lima knows her. J’lima  _ knows her— _

Oh, Force, it hits her then, and her knees almost give out just as the woman opens her mouth once more.

“My name is Lia Vhoss,” she says, teal skin shining in the light of the Temple she hasn’t set foot in since she was eleven years old, “and I am here to negotiate a treaty on behalf of Thexan Tirall, Eternal Emperor of Zakuul.”

And J’lima’s balance is undone.

( _ It’s not fair, _ she doesn’t say when the masters announce that Lia will be going on this Gathering, that there was only room for one of them and J’lima wasn’t good enough. That’s not how they worded it, of course, but she  _ knows _ that’s what they mean. She congratulates Lia and thanks the masters for their consideration, but she understands it means that Lia is better than her, and she hates that, hates not being good enough.

That doesn’t stop her from walking with Lia all the way to the ship that will take her to Ilum. Her best friend’s face is lit up with eagerness, large eyes wide as she excitedly tells J’lima exactly what she’s hoping for, and J’lima doesn’t have time to be sad when Lia looks this  _ happy. _ Lia spent all of the previous day packing, stuffing her bags full of robes and datapads and everything she thought she’d need for the trip; the bag is slung over her shoulder now, pushing her tentacles out of the way as they hang loose around her head. She’s unbound them just for the day, and with the long blue appendages haloing her face, she looks half-wild in the best way possible.

_ You promise you’ll be back on time? _ J’lima asks, trying not to bounce on her toes as Lia adjusts the bag on her back.  _ It’s gonna get boring without you, you know. _

And Lia laughs with a glint of sharp teeth.

_ Of course I will be, _ she swears.  _ I’ll be back before your horns can grow in properly. _

_ I hate you, _ J’lima grumbles, swiping at Lia’s hand as she reaches to poke the side of J’lima’s head where a hard nub has just begun to emerge, and Lia laughs. 

_ Sure you do. You remember what I told you? _

And J’lima sighs, though she’s grinning.  _ You promised I would be the first one to see your lightsaber. You’d better mean it. _

_ Of course I mean it. I made a promise. _

Lia wraps her in a hug when Master Arca calls for her, and she’s still waving goodbye even as her smaller shape walks beside him into the belly of the ship. The last glimpse J’lima catches of her is a final swing of her head, dark eyes glancing over the tiny Temple spaceport with its stone walls, and a little grin she shoots towards J’lima before the ship’s durasteel edge cuts it off.

Two weeks and a little more to Ilum, a day and night, and the same time back. Lia will be back within a month. Lia will be back, and J’lima will have her best friend back, and soon she’ll be on a Gathering and Lia will be the one to wait.

And they’ll be the best Jedi the Order has ever seen.)

“What do you want?” someone has asked Lia—J’lima hears it as though underwater, through a ringing in her ears she can barely process, through the way she’s been upended for the third time in her life.

“You'll agree to our terms, or I'll order my Fleet to destroy your precious Temple,” Lia answers, voice full of contempt, staring with scorn at the Jedi who spoke. “I doubt the treaty will take long, unless you are foolish enough to resist.”

J’lima can’t look away from her. It’s been— years, it’s been  _ so long, _ she lost Lia and mourned her and whispered elegies to her spirit in the Living Force until her throat was too sore to talk, and she’s poured all of herself into the Force more times than she can count, screaming for help from everyone she’s loved and lost and it was  _ always _ Lia among them,  _ always _ Lia she sought strength from, always Lia she begged to guide her strikes and give her fortitude and help her remember what it was to be a Jedi when all she felt was blood on her hands.

And Lia is  _ alive. _

Lia is alive, and she is the Eternal Empire’s conqueror, and she’s standing before the Jedi with a lightsaber hilt in her hand and nothing in her too-gold eyes but utter derision for everything that they are, and  _ gods, _ J’lima called her Vitiate’s scion and she isn’t sure it’s a lie even now.

And for a moment, those eyes come to rest on J’lima, and she can’t even  _ breathe _ beneath the weight of that gaze until it’s gone without even a flicker of recognition, back to staring at Grandmaster Satele with disgust that feels almost  _ personal. _

Lia doesn’t know her. Lia doesn’t know her, even though they were inseparable until they were eleven, even though J’lima spent  _ months _ watching the spaceport and listening to transmissions and begging the masters to tell her what had happened, even though she never once forgot Lia.

And the pain is enough that she isn’t listening to anything else that Lia or the Jedi say. There are talks of the treaty, of course, back-and-forths between Lia and the Council, but J’lima isn’t  _ on _ the Council; she’s a fighter, a warrior. That’s all she’s bred for these days, not the Eternal Empire’s false politics, not whatever treaty will be so  _ gracious _ to allow the Jedi to live. And all of it— _ all of it _ —pales in comparison to Lia Vhoss standing in front of them. How can a single one of them talk to her as though she’s a stranger, as though they weren’t fighting over taking her as a padawan?

As though she and her entire ship didn’t vanish all those years ago, as though the Temple didn’t mourn every life aboard it, as though J’lima didn’t stand next to a ceremonial pyre and weep as her best friend’s robes were burned in place of a body.

It’s been fifteen years and more, but when Lia strides from the room, white robes swirling around her thighs and her company of guards surrounding her, she still leaves behind a void.

The moment the doors slam shut again, the moment the Council explodes into whispers, J’lima’s legs give out. The Jedi aren’t looking at her, at the way she sags against the pillar at her back, at the way she hits the ground with a soft thump. They aren’t looking at her, and it’s a good thing—she can’t pull herself together, not with her nerves run ragged, not with Lia  _ alive _ , and they  _ can’t _ see how weak she really is.

And as the last flickering fires of the Republic die around her, J’lima Akarr reaches into the Force and  _ screams. _


End file.
